


Through Owls Eyes

by Literate_Ghoul



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Gen, Gore, Horror, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-04-23 00:00:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4855598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Literate_Ghoul/pseuds/Literate_Ghoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takizawa Seidou was delcared m.i.a. by the C.C.G. after the battle of the 20th Ward. While it was assumed and expected that he was deceased the truth is a far worse fate. This story will follow his decent into madness and his transformation from investigator to the half-ghoul known as Owl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Imprisoned

_Where am I?'_ Takizawa Seidou's first thoughts came to him through a confused and tired haze. His body ached but it felt distant, like he was floating on a cloud away from his physical form. He tried to make sense of what had happened before he had lost consciousness. He remembered starting the raid against the 20th Ward at a coffee shop, a supposed ghoul base of operations. Everything had gone insane right from the beginning, with ghouls of all classes everywhere and his comrades dying around him. It had seemed the ghoul group Aogiri had somehow been aware of the attack. They set up a counter attack and surprised them all with their violent retaliation and numbers. The memory made him wince and twitch, even in his half unconscious state. 

  "I think he's waking up," the voice floated through his ears from far away and he did not recognize it. That hardly concerned him.  _'Where am I and how did I get here?'_  he wondered again. He felt out of touch, out of control. He wanted to open his eyes, hoping the half remembered carnage was just a bad dream but he was unable to do so. "He shouldn't be waking up yet. We're not ready," another voice he did not recognize. The two people began to move about him with urgency, but Takizawa he was unable to do anything about it or make any sense of what was going on. His body refused to respond and his mind felt like it was drifting away on a cloud. He was aware that he was in pain but did not care, at least not at first. He suddenly remembered that he had lost his arm in the half remember battle. He tried desperately now to wake up. It all had to be a nightmare. His mind raced as he rationalized a nightmare, hoping this was just sleep paralysis and that he would open his eyes and be in his room. Maybe the raid had not even happened yet.  _'That must be it! Everything's fine!'_  But even as he tried to convince himself of that he thrashed out in his half-sedated state, groaning as he fought against the drugs that tried to keep him asleep. It was ludicrous to think it was a dream. If it was a dream then why could he hear voices around him? Why was he in so much pain? He needed visual confirmation and he tried desperately to pull himself from the horrible dream. "Shit. Hold him down. Give him more," the voice from before was more concerned and frantic now and Takizawa felt as though he was being restrained even though he had been unaware of his thrashing. Panic rose in his mind but then suddenly he felt sleepy.  _'So sleepy,'_  and everything faded away again into blackness.

  
  When he next rose from the darkness of sedative induced sleep Takizawa first became aware that he was in a sitting position. His next realization was pain. It was a dull ache at first but mounting gradually on his left side. He groaned, his body was weak and wanted nothing more than to lay down. He tried too, but realized he was bound to the chair he was sitting in and his eyes snapped open.  _'What the hell?'_  He was trapped in a room, on a single uncomfortable steel chair, which he was bound to by ropes. The ropes crossed against his chest, tied his arm down and his legs were also bound to the legs of the chair which he discovered when trying to move them. The room was otherwise plain. It had a single door and white, unpainted walls. There was a rolling sanitary table covered with a white sterile sheet in the corner but otherwise it was empty. His stomach churned with dizziness. Remembering he had been injured he looked to his aching left side and was horrified to find he was missing his arm. He was tightly bandaged but it could not have been long since the battle because blood seeped through and stained the white linen wrapping. Takizawa wanted to screaming but when he opened his mouth he threw up instead. Whether it was a reaction to the pain, sedatives, or the flux of memories that flooded his mind was unknown. He slumped against the ropes that bound him feeling hopeless and squeezed his eyes shut.  _'How can I ever achieve my dreams now?'_ Takizawa held his breath as he tried to master his own emotions over the news of his new reality. It was easy to feel helpless and hopeless. It was easy to berate himself for ending up here because of his lack of abilities but he had little time to dwell on self loathing.  
  
  "Disgusting," a woman's voice greeted him. Takizawa wasn't even sure when she had come into the room. The only door was right in front of him. He had not heard it open or close, nor her feet on the ground as she entered. She was a tiny thing, wrapped in bandages from head to foot and cloaked in a light violet coloured cloak with ears on the hood. "I expected more from the elite C.C.G. but I guess no one is immune to everything," she spoke casually and plainly. It was like they were coworkers discussing something as normal as their mornings. Seidou could only stare at her as he tried to recover from throwing up, and tried his best not to do so again. He was not a stupid man and it took him no time at all to understand his situation. He could only assume he must still be under the effects of some anesthesia because his wound did not hurt nearly as much as it should and his mind still felt clouded. But it was not clouded enough for him to miss his predicament. This must be one of the hideouts Aogiri used. It was obvious he had been taken a prisoner of war, but that was unheard of. Ghouls ate their victims, not interrogated them.  
  
   _'I don't want to die,'_ he thought as horror knifed through him with his realization. "I don't want to die," he muttered to himself, not realizing he had spoken aloud. The anesthetic was making it difficult to discern between what he was thinking and what he was saying. Dying had been his biggest fear. The idea of being eaten alive was a horrible one. He blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the tears of terror that threatened to fall. He had already shown this ghoul enough weakness, he would not cry as well. He had always been prone to getting a little worked up in the face of things which made him scared or stressed but he mastered himself as best as he could now. The anesthetic made everything feel muted, even his fear and he was grateful for the assistance. Takizawa thought he had shed all the tears he had to give on the night he had written his will. He somehow managed to swallow them, wrestling with the fear that snaked through him.   
  
  The female ghoul giggled, "of course you don't. And you won't. If I wanted you dead then you'd be dead already." She pointed out the bandages that had been done up for him. "See? So you're worst fear won't come true. You get to live." She circled around him as she talked and Takizawa got the sense that she was very important. She had the air of someone who measured their self worth above the others around her. For such a tiny figure she also radiated power in the sureness of her words and the carefree way she moved. She was not anxious or tense, she was in control. She knew she was. Takizawa somehow felt like her words were not meant to be a comfort. Whatever she had to offer him was likely worse than death, although he could not imagine what that might be. Taking his absence of speech as her cue to continue the female ghoul went on, "you're meant for much bigger things."   
  
  Takizawa mustered up the courage to spit at her feet, "l-llike hell I'd help yo-you!" He tried to focus on his comrades.  _'What would Amon or Arima do?'_ He desperately wanted to be stronger and smarter and better then them all. Or to at least be worthy of their notice and respect. It's all he had ever wanted and yet he was always a few footsteps behind.  _'They wouldn't be in this situation at all. They wouldn't have ever gotten here...'_  His thoughts were filled with bitterness at his own weakness. He had pressed so hard for combat duty so he could prove himself. He had been sick of being overshadowed by his younger comrades and yet, this is where it had gotten him. It was frustrating. He had finished second in his class. How could he be so far behind even Akira, who had finished just ahead of him? He could rationalize that her father had been a first class investigator which gave her an edge over his own normal family but Takizawa had never seen that as an excuse. He had worked just as hard as her. Then there was Juuzou who was just a child but was rapidly climbing the rungs in C.C.G. ranking. A child who had seen more combat and gained more respect in a few short months then he had in years of hard work.  All he could do now was steel himself to whatever the ghouls would do to him. He pledged he'd not break under them, even as his body trembled in fear. He would prove to everyone that he was worthy of their respect and he would finally get noticed as the important C.C.G. team member he was. Takizawa rationalized like he always did, the C.C.G. had never used him properly. Never allowed his potential to flourish and become realized and now he was in this impossible situation.  
  
  "Well, you've got spirit. I'll give you that much," the female ghoul seemed amused more than anything. Then she suddenly surged forward and her one hand closed on the wound at his shoulder, squeezing down. Even with anesthesia the pain was indescribable. Takizawa screamed and thrashed against his bonds as he instinctively tried to pull away from her and curl up into himself. When she drew back her hand was red with blood, which had started flowing freely again darkening the bandages. He was seeing stars and panted heavily as the pain flowed through his body, ebbing away to a throb as he fought the urge to faint. "But I will get what I want. And you will give it to me gladly? You know why?" She didn't wait for an answer. It was obvious that Seidou was not recovered enough to respond. "I'll get what I want because you want to be special. You want to be strong and I can give you those things," She played expertly upon his desires. She saw his brown eyes look up at her in confusion and kept on going, knowing she had hit the chord she had sought. "That's right Takizawa. I know what you want and who you are and I can give it all to you," she said. "I am Eto and I can become the God that grants your wishes... Or I can be the Devil that tears you down and rebuilds you anyway," she shrugged as if it matters not which path he choose. Eto would make him the weapon she needed. She had done it before and she would do it again, as many times as it took until she created exactly what she had in mind.  
  
  "S-screw you," Takizawa snarled through the pain at her despite the fear at what she'd do to him. While he had not personally suffered at the hands of ghouls before now, like so many of his companions he still hated them. He had decided to become a ghoul investigator after his neighbor had been killed when he was a young boy. His mother had been rocked to her core by the occurrence so close to home. Seidou had pledged that day that he would become a ghoul investigator in the C.C.G. and he would protect his neighborhood, but most importantly his family. "I won't help you w-with a-anything!" He felt empowered by his denial of her and drew strength from the promise he had made to his mother and from the image of his idol Arima.  
  
  Eto grinned under the bandages. "The Devil it is," she obliged. Her kagune burst from her back and Takizawa screamed as it lanced through his wrist and ankles and he was essentially crucified to the chair by three appendages of the ghoul weapon. No amount of residual anesthesia could dull the sharp agony he experienced in that moment. Blood dripped to the floor at an alarming rapidity and pooled beneath him as he flailed ineffectually against her assault. All he could think to do was to beg her to stop but he seemed unable to find the words and the pain blurred his vision. The ropes that bound Seidou to the chair snapped from where her kagune had struck and he fell to the floor. The chair clattered to the ground beside him and Eto withdrew her attack to watch as he curled into the fetal position. Eto left pieces of her kagune speared into his appendages, allowing him no reprieve. She was silent until his screaming stopped and he lay shivering in his own blood. It was quite a miracle he remained conscious but that gave Eto hope. Takizawa was so filled with fear and bitterness that the scent upon him was so strong she could almost taste it. "In order to become strong you must first become free," she said to him as he lay on the floor. Eto began unwinding the bandages from her hand where his blood stained it and let them fall slowly to the floor. She had no need of a disguise here. It was an insult in a way but Seidou barely noticed. Eto was displaying how little fear or respect, how little regard for the investigator she had. Even at her most vulnerable state she was perfectly safe.

  "I won't-t-t-ell you anyth-thing," Takizawa croaked from the floor in complete misinterpretation of her intentions. Her laugh filled his ears again, it was filled with malice and cruelty and made him shiver harder as the pool of his life grew larger around him. What made it so disturbing was how whimsical her laughter was. It was childlike in a way. Youthful and young yet filled with so much hate. He looked up at her in surprise to see she was half in undress and she was as young as she sounded. Bandages were loosely covering her body. Hanging stubbornly to her curvy form despite having mostly unraveled. Her mint coloured hair and sleepy but amused face seemed somehow familiar but Seidou was past caring who she was. He was in too much pain to ponder her name. It was shocking to see someone so human looking. Seidou knew better but he had always pictured ghouls in his mind as horrible and ugly, and they always wore masks so it was difficult to find evidence to refute his fantasy image of what a ghoul unmasked would be. The one thing that gave her away as the monster she was, would be the deadness in her eyes. They were devoid of empathy and sparked with inappropriate amusement at his agony. It was all a sick game to her. She could have been beautiful if it was not for those horrible eyes that stared at him as if he were a gnat. 

  "That's fine. I wasn't going to ask you anything anyway. A lowly agent like yourself would have no information I could make use of," her condescending tone was the thing Seidou hated most. He had heard it so often from so many people. From his comrades and co-workers and it made him grit his teeth in rage. People always saw him this way. Worthless. Insignificant. He was sick of it, but Seidou felt both of those things as he lay helplessly on the cold metal floor, slowly dying. He clenched his eyes shut, as if he could make everything disappear. It was a childish reaction but it was also the only escape he had from this horrible situation, which he could never have even imagined before this day. He could hear Eto was still talking but the loss of blood was making him feel queasy and distant and soon he faded into blissful darkness once more.

  Eto could see any continuation of the torture would be redundant. Her prisoner was past the ability to pay attention to her any longer and would need some time to recover from the pain and shock of his situation.  She  walked from the room and glanced to the two ghouls guarding the room that would become Seidou's cage. "I'm done for now. Make sure he doesn't die. I need him." Eto had grabbed her purple robe off the floor on her way out and tossed it on herself as she strode off. The two cloaked ghouls bowed their heads slightly and turned into the room. The metal floor was slick with blood and the two men worked to move Takizawa from his filth to bring in a bed. 

  Seidou was strapped down by one man to the bed which had been brought in and another worked to clean up the gory mess as Dr. Kano entered the room to ensure their prisoner would survive. Once their job was done the two ghouls left the room mumbling complaints about their ruined uniforms from the blood and vomit as they left the doctor to his job. The investigators screams echoed down the hallways off the ghoul complex until Takizawa finally fell unconscious from the pain.


	2. Depravation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takizawa's imprisonment in the Ghoul base continues. Torture, solitude and terror are slowly whittling away at his sanity.

Upon waking there was no sensation and Seidou wondered if he had died. He felt like he was floating because there was no feeling of anything touching his skin. Opening his eyes yielded only unbroken darkness and he had to blink repeatedly to be sure he had opened them at all. Seidou tried to talk but his mouth felt thick and he heard nothing. So he felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing and it was terrifying. Seidou would have thrashed more when he discovered he could move but it hurt and was difficult. It was as if something weighed him down, or like wading through water. Pain was about the only real indication that he was alive and it was terrifying. Panic was a feeling he was becoming familiar with and it washed over him as he tried to figure out what his situation was. It only took a short time before he came to the conclusion that it was impossible to discern his current state without any of his sense. 

He wondered if Eto had tormented him after he lost consciousness so badly that he had literally lost his senses. 'No that's stupid. I can still move,' but could he? Perhaps the feeling of movement was just imaginary? Imaginary as the feeling of having two arms when he knew he only had one. Seidou had heard of a 'ghost limb' sensation for amputees but he was amazed at how convincing it felt. His mind wandered in this manner for some time. He wondered where he was in Japan, how the operation had gone. He was sure it had failed or else Aogiri would not be here to torture him in a ghoul base. Takizawa wished he had of been capable of doing more in the fight but his lack of experience and his continued fear of death had made him less impressive in battle as he was sure he could be. Fear was always holding him back, it seemed. Until finally he wondered, 'why did they take me?' Seidou knew from previous reports and incidents that it was not entirely uncommon for higher class ghouls to keep humans as pets. He hardly felt like a pet. 'But if a murderer tortures and kills their cat. It's still a pet,' the thought bothered him on multiple levels. Both the moral wrongness of tormenting a defenseless life form and the realization that in this scenario he was the cat. 

This made his mind wander back to the comrades who had fought beside him. Takizawa wondered if they were alright. He was sure many of the C.C.G. investigators had been lost in the Ward 20 raid. Perhaps others had even been captured, like he had. He did not doubt that power house investigators like Arima. Amon and Shinohara had made it through the raid alive. He knew his own squad had not survived. No one but himself, and he was sure that he would be marked as m.i.a. in the files. The feeling made him sick and he wondered how many people in the past had been captured or lost, alive, to ghouls in the past. No one would even be looking for him. As far as they knew he'd simply been devoured. Takizawa was just another number, ticked off in the C.C.G. records as deceased. 'I'm sure Akira and Juuzou are just fine too,' Takizawa was surprised at the bitter sweetness of the thought. While he was glad to think they would be okay, he was angry to know that he was not. This scenario almost proved everything he had been so angry about before the ward 20 raid. 

Takizawa had always been bitter of his younger comrades rising into the ranks to stand beside, and then above of him. It was unfair. Seidou worked as hard as anyone else and he deserved credit, recognition and assignments. Yet it seemed the favoured investigators always had jobs, plenty of work to prove their worth. 'If they had given me work before then... I would have been more experienced. I would have been able to fight better. I could have won,' Takizawa thought to himself. The C.C.G. had never given him a chance to prove himself and show the world that he was a smart and skilled investigator and that is why he had failed. The C.C.G. had failed him, supporting favoritism and neglecting others. He had been placed with other agents who had been worthless to the C.C.G. as well and they had all fallen. They had been as good as sacrificed it seemed. When the ghouls had come, none of them had stood a chance. With this train of thought Takizawa found himself disgusted in himself. In his own mind. 'Did I really always feel like this?' He wondered to himself. Takizawa would have liked to think it was this odd suspended state that was responsible.

This made him once again consider his situation. Seidou realized he was tired, hungry and thirsty but he could do nothing about those things. Starvation and dehydration seemed like terrible deaths and he had to remind himself again of Eto's promise that he would not die here, to calm the panic that rose in him once more. He went back to trying to discern his whereabouts. There had to be some way to escape. Some way to figure out where he was and to get out, but all he got for his efforts was a feeling of muted pain from wounds he knew should feel much more severe. Being trapped with no sensation but pain, the drone of his thoughts and the pressured ringing of silence was a nightmare Seidou had never considered before. The feeling was oppressive the longer he was aware of it and focusing, like something heavy closing in on him.

 

The longer Seidou remained in sensory deprivation the darker his thoughts became and his sense of time was lost completely. Takizawa fell in and out of sleep but he was unable to rest for long. It was like traveling through nightmares. When he was asleep he dreamt of the ward 20 battle, of faceless corpses all around him and Eto's laughter echoing around him as he screamed for help that never came. When he was awake he continued to grow more certain that something or someone was watching him. Unfortunately though, he could still sense nothing of the world around him. Just this feeling that he was being watched. It made him uncomfortable when he thought about it. He tried to distract himself by thinking about his family. His mother and sister were surely safe for a while at least. He was sure the C.C.G. had taken care of them, at least. It made him sad to think they'd be mourning him. Wrongly told by the reports that he was dead but he found himself unable to cry for them. He had no time to find empathy for his families feelings while he was trapped in this place. He had to believe he would see them again.

 

One day when he woke Seidou was no longer in the place where he felt nothing. Takizawa opened his eyes slowly and was greeted by darkness as always. But it was not the impenetrable blackness that he had become familiar with over --- only God knows how long. There was an outline of light, indicating a door on the other side of the room he found himself in. The investigator picked himself off the floor, surprised to find he was in no pain at all and then confused. His right hand shot to where his left arm should be, and it was there! "Impossible," he muttered to himself. "Did the ghouls somehow heal it? How... why?" Takizawa muttered to himself. It felt good to speak out loud again. Being trapped inside his own mind had been madness. His legs felt weak as he picked himself up and Seidou made his way cautiously to the door. He bumped into a chair on the way, but managed to find the handle without much trouble. It was unsurprising to find that the door was locked. With that confirmed, Seidou began to feel about the walls until he discovered a light switch. He was delighting to discover that it worked but he winced and hissed softly as the light stung his eyes. It had seemed like an eternity since he had last used his eyes and seen something. Takizawa felt relieved that he had not gone blind after all. The room was similar to the one he had been tortured in previously. The size was the same but the walls were made of stone, which he had suspected from how inconsistent and cold the surface had felt. In the middle of the room was a table and two chairs, one was displaced from when he had bumped into it. What was on the table made his eyes widen and his mouth fill was saliva. His stomach twisted greedily and before he even considered what exactly it might be, Seidou was sitting in the chair taking up the fork and knife to eat.

 

There was no side or vegetables provided for his meal, only a cut of meat which filled his entire plate. It had been grilled and smelled strongly but the scent was unfamiliar. Seidou took in a deep breath, it smelled sweet and delicious and he had to swallow to keep from drooling. His stomach had been twisting with starvation for what felt like an eternity and he dug in gratefully and greedily. The first bite was so wonderful he devoured the rest, thinking it tasted vaguely like pork. Perhaps he had simply forgotten what pork tasted like, or maybe the ghoul cooks - Ghoul. Cooks. Takizawa choked, his stomach heaving and he shoved the plate away with the wild realization of what he was most likely eating. The legs of the table and chair screeched like nails on a chalk board as he shoved away from the table. The slab of three quarters eaten meat slapped the ground amid the shattered glass plate. He looked around frantically for a sink or toilet, anything to throw up in as his stomach continued to clench tightly. The need to throw up was both from eating too much on a stomach that had been hungry for too long, and his disgust. He rushed to a corner, holding tightly to himself as he vomit so hard his eyes and nose watered. His stomach muscles and throat ached and his mouth burned from the bile that had risen in his esophagus to eject his meal.

 

Takizawa sniffled, still retching even though his stomach was empty as he leaned in the rooms corner. He was unsure what disgusted him more. 'It tasted so good,' the thought was horrifying and his throat clenched as he choked once more in self revulsion. "What if that was one of my comrades?" He whispered in horror to himself. He could have been eating anyone! He tried to calm himself down, focusing on breathing techniques learned in combat training. "No... no it wasn't," he glanced over at the ruined meat on the ground, "it wasn't a person. It was just pork." He muttered to himself queasily. Perhaps the ghouls were not entirely terrible, they had given him his arm back so maybe he really was just getting a meal. "They have to feed me... or I'll die," Takizawa wondered how long he had been floating in nothingness. He checked his wrist and ankles and discovered he was completely healed. Where his arm attached to his body felt painful but far from recently returned to him. It was easier to think rationally without the pressing presence in the room of nothing. "I'd have died without food and water for this long..." He thought to himself as he examined his lack of wounds. Although he was quite thirsty.

 

"We've been feeding you intravenously," Etos voice made Seidou spin around, almost slipping in his own vomit as he did so. He just barely caught himself on the wall as she stepped into the room. She was so tiny and unassuming to look at, wearing her human street cloths and yet she instilled an absolute terror in Takizawa as he recalled their last meeting. Her eyes focused on the shattered plate and wasted meat on the floor and she smiled, "how rude. You've wasted a perfectly good meal. Maybe one of these times we meet, you won't be throwing up." Her tone was light and teasing.

 

"What was it?" Seidou demanded as his brown eyes flickered about the room in search of an escape. The door fell closed behind Eto but he was wildly aware that she had not locked it again. It was a chance. All he had to do was get her away from the door and he could run. It was a desperate sort of hope that filled him now.

 

"I think you know," she said with a laugh, not moving from the doorway. "In some cultures they believe that if you consume the flesh of those stronger then you... that you will gain their powers. Sometimes it is just their knowledge but usually it's their physical characteristics." The young woman's eyes bore into Takizawa as he shook beneath her gaze. It was both from fear and hunger. Hunger that continued to disgust him. The smell of vomit and cooked meat intertwined and yet he was starving enough that his stomach still growled loudly. "This is definitely true for ghouls," Eto said and she strode away from the door. She walked around the table and leaned down to start gathering up glass shards and a new idea came to Seidou's mind. Perhaps he could catch Eto unawares! If he ran he stood no chance at getting away before she chased him down. But if he could get his hands on a glass shard and kill her, or least wound her before she could react then he would have a much better chance. He was rooted to the ground with indecision now. "A real philosophy that I follow... is what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. I've always been partial to that saying," it was a favourite of hers for several reasons but she choose to share none of those with him today.

 

"You know. You're stronger then you were before already," she said. Eto appeared completely distracted by her task of gathering glass as she spoke. Seidou became aware of a piece that had flown away from the site of the plates fall. It was not far from where he stood and Eto was only a few steps away. He seized the moment despite the fear of death that wound its way around his gut. Seidou pounched forward, his hands grabbed the dagger-like piece of glass and charged Eto with desperate abandon. The sharp edges bit into his hand as he lunged with a wild scream intended both to startle Eto and energize himself. He almost made it to her when she looked up. Their eyes met and Seidou saw no fear, only mild amusement. It was like he were a kitten attacking a tiger. Before Seidou could register that Eto had moved he had been stopped in his tracks. His eyes looked down in horror as she tsked her tongue at him.

 

Eto had not even needed to dodge the attack. Her kagune had burst forth and impaled Seidou through the midsection. His body trembled with shock and it took him several seconds to even feel the pain as he stared in horror at the blood pooling at his feet. He did not even scream as she withdrew her kagune, simply fell to his knees and then to all fours. He had only one option left to him. Despite the absurdity of the idea of escaping now, he tried it anyway. Takizawa started crawling for the door. He scrambled as quickly as he could, coughing and hacking up bloody bile and slipping in the pool of blood that he dragged with him. Takizawa actually made it to the door. His hand clenched around the handle and he pulled it open, but he got no further than that. He collapsed onto the ground half in the hallway and lost consciousness from shock and blood loss. Eto sighed. She had so much more to say but their meeting had been cut short. Perhaps next time he would listen to her instead of attacking her. Eto smiled to herself as she stepped over his body. Takizawa had shown her a tenacity and courage she initially doubted he possessed by confronting her. His plan would have been reasonable to use against a human, but against Eto it had been hopeless from the beginning. The glass shard could have never hurt her.


	3. Paradise Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seidou wakes up confined to a cell and he finds Eto's left him a horrid gift.

The next time Seidou awoke he was once again completely healed. Although this time he was not floating in nothingness. The cold, hard, merciless cement ground greeted him and when he lifted his head, he peered out through iron bars down a long hallway. There seemed to be many jail-like cells straight out of a horror movie, set lining the wall across from him. He could easily imagine the rest of the hall was the same. He was alone with no guards in sight. Takizawa groaned as he pushed himself from the floor into a sitting position. He was ragged, dirty and greasy. His hair hung like curtains in front of his face and it was streaked with white. The aches and pains he felt were from laying awkwardly on the hard floor and his stomach twisted with hunger. His lips were dry and cracked and tasted of blood.

Takizawa was past wondering where he was. He was almost past rational thought as one thing and one thing only entered his mind. Food. He was so hungry it felt like his insides were going to rip him apart. He stuck black nailed fingers into his mouth and began desperately gnawing at them and pacing his cage like a wild animal. "So hungry," he muttered to himself as he paced. He was biting his fingers so hard it hurt, so hard he tasted blood and he kept chewing almost unaware he was even doing it. Suddenly he thought he heard something. Was someone else here after all? He froze mid-stride and his eyes went wide as he tried to discern the source. His gaze flickered around like a bird of prey and he strained to hear. His senses all felt sharper then he recalled. Perhaps all that time in sensory deprivation had helped him in some way. What didn't kill you, made you stronger. And Takizawa wanted to be stronger. He'd always wanted the strength to prove everyone he deserved their respect.

There it was again. It was sobbing, someone else was here. He licked his lips and then recoiled from himself in horrified disgust. "What am I...?!" he exclaimed in a whisper. Talking to himself was becoming a habit. But that was not nearly as concerning as the fact that his first thought had been to feast upon the source of the sobs. His fingers slid from inside his mouth into his hair streaking lines of blood across his forehead as he pulled at it, desperately trying to retain some sort of humanity through this hunger. He didn't even know it was possible to be this starving and he pressed himself into the corner of his enclosure. Thank God he was caged. Seidou couldn't hurt anyone in here... But he could smell someone. Smell flesh and hear pray so close, sobbing. Before he knew it he was crawling across the floor of his cell, dragging his belly like a slithering snake to the barred door where he could still hear the sobbing and his mouth was thick was saliva. His eyes were filled with madness as his gutt twisted upon itself. He was so weak. So hungry. Just a taste couldn't hurt.

Seidou reached out to the bars with bloody hands, intending to grip them but then froze when they swung open with a soft audible creak of metal which was not oiled often enough. He blinked in disbelief. "It was open?" He cocked his head to the side in absolute confusion and then after a moment he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. If the door was open then Eto wanted him to get out. He stayed on the floor where he'd dragged himself contemplating the worth of leaving his cage. The sound of terrified sobbing reached his ears again and Seidou slowly got up on shaking legs. Not concerned or even curios about who else was here with him he sought them out. It was only hunger. He stalked barefoot across the cold concrete floors making barely a sound as he followed his nose and his ears to his prey.

When he found the source of the sound he stopped dead in his tracks and just starred. Several cages down the hall from his own was his mother and sister. Numbly he reached out and grabbed the bars of the door and pulled it open. Like his, the cage had been closed but unlocked and the sound of the metal creaking caused their eyes to shoot up at him. He watched as his mother's terror turned to confusion and then revelation. "What are you doing here....?" He whispered confusedly. Sstunned beyond his hunger for a moment and into horror and shock at their presence here and what it meant. How much had the C.C.G. failed it's members? If the ghouls had brought these two here it could be no coincidence. 

"S-Seidou!?" His mother shrieked and bolted across the cage when the bars swung open. She threw herself into his arms, knocking him a few paces back as he caught her. She smelled so good as she sobbed in his arms. His mouth watered and his black, bloody, cracked lips twitched as he restrained the hunger that came back. Pounding through his body like the blood that pumped through his mothers veins. She seemed oblivious to his internal struggle as she cried. "Oh my God. What have they done to you? I'm so glad you're alive but -- but what have they done to you?" he was barely flesh and bones and his whole body shook and reeked from his time in torture and solitude. She was hysterical at the sight. Hesitantly his sister seemed to uncurl from the crouched position in the corner and shuffled nearer them. She also had that look of relief on her face at seeing her brother, thought to be dead.

"What are you doing here?" Seidou asked numbly. "What are you doing here?" He sounded panicked, almost as hysterical as his mother. Then it suddenly struck him. They were here for him. They were his family and they were here for him. Family helped each other out, right? His fingers tightened on Michie's shoulders and his mother winced as fingers dug with unnatural strength into her. 

"Ow... Seidou. Are you okay? You're hurting me," she mumbled and started to try and pull away from her broken son. Seidou didn't release her and didn't even seem to hear her as his mind whirled. Fractured thoughts of a mind shattered with hunger.

"Y-you're here for me, right?" He asked lowering his eyes to the dirty, cold and unforgiving floor between them. To stare at his own black toes. His hair was completely snow white now, even though it had still been streaked with brown barely a few moments ago. Greasy curtains hid his eyes as he shook.

"Of c-course Seidou... Now let me go hunny. You're hurting me," Mishie said. His sister Seina quietly kept trying to catch her brothers eye. Trying desperately to get his attention and snap him out of whatever enthralled him but it was no good. Whatever bond they had once shared as siblings seemed severed completely. He barely took notice. Mishie reached up to try and brush the hair from his eyes, to cup his face in her hands to calm him as she had a thousand times in the past when her little boy was overcome with emotion. He had always been such a sensitive soul. As she tucked the hair behind his ears and revealed his sunken face their eyes connected. Seina shrieked and fell to the ground, pushing herself into the corner in horror at the black and red kakugan which had activated in Seidou's left eye. It had been a bright proclamation of his fate and yet Seidou had not yet realized what he had become. His mothers mouth widened in horror but she seemed beyond screaming. She shook her head in denial as Seidou took in a deep breath. 

"It's okay mother... You said you'd be there for me. I need you to make me strong," he was beyond being appalled by himself. Mishie's perfume was scented with some exotic fruits, mingled with the strawberries of his sister Siena. Although it had been days since the last application his ghoul senses picked up on the odor without problem. "Fruit salad," he muttered to himself. It smelled of fresh cut fruit salad. Like Mishie used to make for him on those hot summer days as a young boy. How could they blame him for devouring them when they smelled so good? His mother struggled in his iron grip as his resolve crumbled completely. Her screams mingled with his sisters horror like some macabre choir as blood and flesh filled his mouth. It was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. He sunk to the floor as meat slid down his throat and Mishie's body went limp in his arms and the life pumped out of her body to the floor. Her face was twisted in eternal shock and horror as she died, devoured by her own son who was too lost in the insanity of ghoulish hunger to even realize what he had done.

Siena screamed and tried to run. The cage door was open and much as Seidou had tried to escape from Eto in a moment of distraction, his sister mirrored him. Sadly though her body was not reinforced with R.C. cells and regenerative power. One of the many surgically implanted kagune burst from Seidou reactively and speared his sister to the concrete wall of the cell. The meat could not be allowed to escape! He desperately gorged himself upon the 2 corpses as he reaped rewards he felt he deserved. Family was there to help each other and they HAD helped him.

Eto watched from security cameras as Seidou ate himself into a coma and fell contentedly asleep amid the pieces of bone and flesh, which was all that remained of Mishie and Siena. She had stolen the last thing that kept her Artificial Owl defiant. The last thing that mattered to him. Eto had stolen his humanity and his family and she hoped this would be the final straw that broke him.

 

When Seidou finally woke up he felt painfully bloated and his mouth tasted coppery. He licked his lips and swallowed as he slowly opened his eyes. Staring directly into his face was the severed heads of his mother and sister and he howled, reeling backwards as the memories flooded through him. He was back in the cell, he realized. Seidou shoved himself until he hit the corner of the wall and curled up in the fetal position, trembling. "I'm a ghoul," he mouthed wordlessly over and over until he finally yelled it out loud. It echoed queerly down the hallway, through the cells and he could not remove his eyes from his greatest sin.

"Impossible. Impossible I can't be," but even as he whispered it he recalled how delicious his family had been to devour and how relieving. He remembered his kagune and shuddered in horror. He was the very thing he had been trained to kill. Suddenly it all made sense. His arm hadn't been returned to him, he'd grown it back. He should have died from the injuries he'd sustained against Eto on the night of his attempted escape. The glass had not been able to cut through his hand, his skin was too strong now. Eto had said he was special and she wanted him for a reason and it all made sense now.

Clapping alerted him to her arrival. She was standing outside the cell smiling and clapping. She was in her human cloths and looked adorable, sleepy and unmenacing. Under her arm was a book and she smelled of coffee and the library. "I see you enjoyed your 'fruit salad' thoroughly," she somehow managed to sound so casual and simultaneously so mocking.

Horrible disgusted rage twisted through Seidou. She had done this to him! She had murdered them by placing them here. Seidou screamed and launched at the bars of the cell. The door was locked but he was well fed now, strong and not held back by ignorance anymore. A different kagune then the one from before (this one wrapped around his arm) burst forth and he used it to slice through the bars. Eto giggled eagerly and dodged away as the former C.C.G. agent howled and perused her. "DIE FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" Seidou shrieked, his eyes saucer wide with madness.

"I only did what you wanted me too!" She protested as she playfully batted away his attacks which were clumsy as a new born babes.

"I didn't ask for any of this!" Seidou wailed as he lunged once more. Eto dodged to the side and planted a kick in his ribs with enough force to send him careening into the nearest cell. He hit the bars of the closed cage so hard they groaned and bent and he slid down, coughing up his own blood. She was unbelievably strong.

"You did," Eto insisted fluffing casually at the bun atop her head and switching which arm the book was under. "You wanted to be strong and respected. You wanted to fight so I made you strong." Her smile was so innocent at first appearances it was horrifying. Seidou Takizawa sagged, he hardly had the energy to argue after the crushing realization of what he had done and he began to weep instead. All this time he had been strong. He had tried to keep quiet about anything and everything he knew. Seidou had not spoken a word and had tried to continue hoping against hope that the C.C.G. would come for him. But if they had come for him, what would they have done? He was a ghoul now. They had utterly failed him. Eto seemed to read his mind, "what you should do. Is show the C.C.G. how they SHOULD have respected you. How they should have treated you. If it wasn't for them you'd not be here. You're mother and sister would still be alive."

Seidou threw his hands over his ears as he trembled, curled up and sobbed for the loss of his family. He had sworn to protect them. Eto was standing close to him now, leaning over him. "They stopped even considering your family the moment you were marked as M.I.A., assumed killed in action. Because of the C.C.G.'s lack of care and protection that's why they ended up here," she hissed leaning forward so close he could smell quality dark roast coffee on her lips as her breath ghosted across his forehead.

When their eyes met, Eto knew she had won. The loathing hated and anger in his eyes was not directed at her anymore. "They will pay," he hissed angrily. Eto smiled and pat him on the head.

"They will. Just listen to me and I'll make sure you get to show them the error of their ways... Come," she beckoned with her free hand. Seidou hesitated only a moment before taking her hand. When she pulled him up the deceivingly tiny and always disheveled young woman fumbled the book under her arm. "Whoops," her done made the fumble sound intentional. It landed in a pile of drying blood which seeped into the old books pages and stained them. Seidou didn't even question where the blood came from. Didn't even realize they had somehow fought there way to the cell he had devoured his mother and sister.

"Paradise Lost," Seidou read the cover, his head tilted like a curious dog.

"I was re-reading it. But it's okay," Eto said merrily. "I was done."


End file.
